Annual Research Report 2020

56 In conversation with Ms Sizakele Mokhele How did your interest for creative writing start? My interest in creative writing started when I was very young. I was fascinated by the stories my grandmother and mother used to tell me and I used to enjoy reading… anything I could find… from Steve Biko’s I write what I like to The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I preferred expressing myself through letters and poems. When I got older, I just became conscious of the world around me… the nature, music, language and the agony that my family and community experienced due to the South African history and the politics of race. I find creative writing freeing because it is not shy to say anything about everything – there’s truth and beauty in the emotions expressed in books and writing gives me the opportunity to think about what it is I really want to say. What are you looking forward to in 2020 for your academic career? I look forward to growth in 2021 both academically and per- sonally. I am currently busy with my PhD proposal and hope to submit it by end of the year. I’m also looking forward to teaching the introduction to creative writing and learning from my first-year students. What can you advise others on in terms of their creative writing? The only advice I have on creative writing is “READ. READ. READ!” and just dive in … enjoy discovering yourself and the world through reading. Writing is an art and through reading you can nourish your creative writing. Invest in your writing by being part of a writing group where you discuss the work of known and unknown writers, send your work to other writers for feedback, write and read every-day. Writers are readers. Poem by Sizakele Ms Sizakele Mokhele first lesson i was ready for my first day of school in my new blue tunic with a gold collar and a saint matthews’ badge on my left breast pocket i had a red and white suitcase my lunch and pen and paper packed inside at the door men in blue uniform came in banging things in the house – sideboards, wardrobes, cupboards, chest of drawers “ons soek jabulani, waar is jabulani?” they came out with a black and white picture of malume jabu, who i’d never seen enough to remember his face umkhulu mhlongo the school transport driver didn’t hoot for me when he saw police vans he just left me to learn my first lesson in history and afrikaans inside our four roomed house my teachers the police in front of our gate and gogo pushed down by a red-faced man laying on the floor; gasping for air. POEM BY: SIZAKELE